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My bottom line is that I expect us to beat Oakland, We're a much better team, and Brady just doesn't have two poor performances in a row. However, the situation in the secondary is sad indeed.
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Meriweather and Sanders both played nickel and dime when there were injuries among the corners. That is one of the functions of a safety, especially a free safety. We go into this game with the worst secondary that I even remember on the patriots. The worst of it is that this situation is a result of a conscious choice of the Front Office.

We will have McCourty, Arrington, Chung, Barrett and Brown. There are no backups.

Belichick thought that we needed upgrades in the secondary. So, now with Bodden and Downing out, we get to test his choices. Belichick is supposed to be the master of depth (consider our OL), and able to go forward when folks are injured.

I have disagreed with Belichick decisions occasionally, but usually I am a believer, or at least can understand later why certain decisions were made. The decisions in the off-season regarding the secondary are truly inscrutable.

The situation is not good, and I'm certainly concerned for this game, but name me a team that can lose two top corners and still field four good ones. The safeties are a bigger problem, but we went into this season with four corners I felt good about (Dowling being the question mark, but hopefully would progress as the year went on). You can't stock starters at CB 5 and 6.

1) So you think Molden is at least as good as Butler or Wilhite? Well, we'll see how well he plays today.

2) You think that the "turnover" at safety doesn't affect our ability to backup for Bodden Arrington? That simply isn't true. We could have have Sanders and Merwieather on our roster today instead of Adams and Ihedigbo. We'd then have TWO more players available to be our nickel and dime backs. We'd be going into today with 7 defensive backs (out our total of 9 or 10) instead of 5.

Or we could could have Butler and either Meriweather or Sanders.

The thought discussed forever during the off-season was that we would keep one of Butler and Wilhite AND one of Meriweather or Sanders. That approach would have allowed turnover, depth and continuity.

If memory serves me correctly Meriweather was pretty much run out of town on this board and on the airwaves...

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Not in return for NOTHING.

Once he arrived home from his improbable 2nd Pro Bowl appearance I was right here on this board last Spring screaming from the tree tops that the Pats needed to move him right then for the highest price they would ever receive.

My bottom line is that I expect us to beat Oakland, We're a much better team, and Brady just doesn't have two poor performances in a row. However, the situation in the secondary is sad indeed.
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Meriweather and Sanders both played nickel and dime when there were injuries among the corners. That is one of the functions of a safety, especially a free safety. We go into this game with the worst secondary that I even remember on the patriots. The worst of it is that this situation is a result of a conscious choice of the Front Office.

We will have McCourty, Arrington, Chung, Barrett and Brown. There are no backups.

Belichick thought that we needed upgrades in the secondary. So, now with Bodden and Downing out, we get to test his choices. Belichick is supposed to be the master of depth (consider our OL), and able to go forward when folks are injured.

I have disagreed with Belichick decisions occasionally, but usually I am a believer, or at least can understand later why certain decisions were made. The decisions in the off-season regarding the secondary are truly inscrutable.

OUT
Sanders, Meriweather, Butler, Wilhite

IN
Molden, Barrett, Ihedigbo, Adams

Who exactly is Belichick trying to impress with these weird choices?

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Didn't we have the worst defense or close to it in the league at this time last year? All we know at this point is that Barrett and Brown have not looked very good and that BB and his staff deemed them to be BETTER than Meriweather and Sanders. So what does that say about those guys? Nevertheless, even with the question mark at one safety spot, we will be fine if we have our top 3 corners and Chung healthy at the end of the year.

Once he arrived home from his improbable 2nd Pro Bowl appearance I was right here on this board last Spring screaming from the tree tops that the Pats needed to move him right then for the highest price they would ever receive.

The moment was right.

The Sanders cut was just stupid. We could actually use him.

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how do you know that there were no offers or no offers.. I suspect that efforts were made, but there were no takers..

Belichick is the only person not in the employ of the New England Patriots who thinks that we are better off without James Sanders on the team. Even if Belichick thought that both Barrett and Brown were better than Sanders (mind boggling as it seems), then Sanders was still veteran insurance, and a worthy backup at safety, at nickel and at dime back.

Didn't we have the worst defense or close to it in the league at this time last year? All we know at this point is that Barrett and Brown have not looked very good and that BB and his staff deemed them to be BETTER than Meriweather and Sanders. So what does that say about those guys? Nevertheless, even with the question mark at one safety spot, we will be fine if we have our top 3 corners and Chung healthy at the end of the year.

Meriweather was much better then any safety on the roster right now and Butler was not very good but Antwaun Molden really thats who they replace him with it's a joke, i know there are lots of injuries but even with out all the injuries this is still the worst Defense in the NFL